I’m sure this is a problem everyone deals with but lately I have found myself with a lot of scrap that I can’t bear to part with! I am wondering if anyone has a solution to one storing scrap and also, how small is too smal?! As the prices of hardwood rises, I really can’t part with even a 5in X 2in x 3/4 piece of walnut that I used on a project. What do you do with?

I like to keep smaller pieces of select hardwood for use as pegs and such. Walnut would be a good contrasting color to a maple or other light wood. Pine and oak, more common woods go to my relatives houses for burning in the fire pit or chiminea.

I take a various paths with scraps. Small pieces of Plywood/MDF/Pine go out the door. Small pieces of Oak/Cherry goto a BBQ friend of mine and other non-oily type of Hardwood (really small pieces) goto the fireplace. As the value of the wood increases the smaller the piece I am willing to keep.

The next is storage. I am the guy with the storage hanging from the ceiling. You have to have somewhere to keep these pieces without tripping over them. So keep as much as you can within reason and value (to you). With this hanging storage and my big lumber storage rack on the wall I am still planning to build me one of these.

Now what really comes into play for me is how small is “small”. Above gives a good guide for myself. Say a 8”x8” piece of 1/2ply. Do I keep it or throw it? Well how much of this “stuff” do I have already? Most of the time the only thing these types of pieces are good for is backer boards for drilling/routing/clamp pads. The question is then do I have enough of this on hand already?

The other factor is how much do I have on hand, lets say red oak (I have a ton of shorts that are from 35” long to 12” long and from 13” wide to 5” wide). At this point of time anything that is a cutoff from an end of one of these the boards are considered junk (I have plenty on hand) and goes to the BBQ pile. Now lets take a ebony pen blank, I clean up before I cut this wood and I try to gather the sawdust up and put it into a 35mm film canister. Even a real small price of this can be turned into a decorative detail for a Greene & Greene style project. What it boils down to, is there are no easy answers but you do have to prune your stock back from time to time.

Hope this gives you something to chew on.

-- //FC - Round Rock, TX - "Experience is what you get just after you need it"

keeping it is easy, storing it is something else. Make sure you organize them well. ( at least in your head) so you don’t over do it. And make sure you have a wide range in there. If it’s full of pine then clean out the junk pieces.

When making a dutchman or other type of fit in piece this is where I go. Like sike says. You can use small pieces to contrast your work. Which becomes a little more special when you accent it with opposing colors.

once a year (about) i make up a batch of picture frames small boxes or small turned containers. i built a 24 inch cube, when that fills up with small scrap i go through it. 90 percent of these the loml gives as gifts

How about boxing them up in asortments and sell them at a tage sale.at least you’ll get some cash for it. Or you could sell it to campers for kindling. —you should see the stuff they through in the dumpster at work. Needless to say, I have to stay away from that dumpster!